Clinton camp: Sanders call for debates a ‘stunt'

Hillary Clinton's campaign fired back at Bernie Sanders' team on Monday afternoon, denouncing the Vermont senator's team for pulling a "stunt" and crying out for attention despite three significant caucus victories over the weekend.

During an interview with CNN's Brooke Baldwin, Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon was asked to account for strategist Joel Benenson's comments earlier in the day on the same network, in which he said that Sanders' call for another debate for the New York primary would depend upon his "tone."

“Well look it’s still only March, so there’s plenty of time to consider a potential debate in April, and if we have one, where the site for it would be," Fallon said. "The Sanders campaign sent us a letter over the weekend which I considered to have been a stunt."

Fallon also sought to contrast Clinton's speech last week responding to the terrorist attacks in Belgium with Sanders' call for more debates.

"Hillary Clinton laid out a plan to defeat ISIS that was true to our values," Fallon said, pointing to Trump's comments about "closing off the borders and banning Muslims from entering this country, bringing back torture."

"I think that the Sanders campaign is struggling a bit for attention, and even in the aftermath of their three wins on Saturday, I think that their delegate math being what it is, people sort of realize that this is an uphill climb. And so I think this is an attempt by them to get back onto people’s radar," Fallon posited. "Look, we’re going to be campaigning heavily throughout New York. Hillary Clinton thrives in these debates settings, so we have no issue with the debates. But I think that the Sanders campaign is increasingly telegraphing that it’s going to be spending the next three weeks on the attack against Hillary Clinton."

Fallon added that there is "plenty of time to consider" a debate before the April 19 primary, remarking that "we’ve put together debates on much shorter notice than this, but we are carefully watching the fact that the Sanders campaign says that they’re poll-testing new lines of attack on fracking and Wall Street to try to campaign negatively against Hillary Clinton in New York. We don’t think it’ll work."